Time to End
by Believe4Ever
Summary: Zim sighed as he sat at his desk. All day all that had run through his head was what his leaders had told him. It was very depressing and caused him pain. He stood up abruptly and made his way to the chalkboard. Picking up a piece of chalk, the memories surged through his head once more. "How did this happen?" (sad!Zim, caring!Dib)


**I hope you all enjoy the story! Some people may think there could be ZaDr in this, but it's not actual pairing. Please enjoy and review!**

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"Invader Zim, reporting!" Zim proclaimed proudly when his leaders' faces appeared on the screen. "It has been several years since you sent me here, and I have successfully infiltrated what the humanoids call 'High School'. I have learned much about the human race and their weaknesses!"

"Uh, that's great, Zim," the purple-eyed leader said, unsurely.

"However, since I've been here for so long, my resources are depleting. I must come back to restock!"

The leaders looked at each other.

"Zim," the red-eyed leader started, "We thought you'd understand by now . . ."

"Understand what?"

"You're not welcome here, Zim."

"What do you mean? It's my home."

"No, you're banned. That's why we sent you there. You can't come back."

"But—"

"Goodbye, Zim."

The connection ended, leaving a fuzzy screen. Zim blinked incomprehensively. "Banned? Why I was sent here? Why . . . But they said . . ."

"Time for school!" Gir called in his high-pitched voice. "Time for school! Yay!"

"Right . . ." Zim whispered, standing up. "School."

_What did they mean?_

"Hey, _Zim,_" Dib spat as he followed the alien up the steps that led into the school. Zim had put on his human disguise before coming. "What's your plan for world destruction _today?_"

"Nothing," Zim answered glumly.

"Nothing? That's not like you. What are you up to?" Dib immediately thought of all the schemes that came with Zim.

"Nothing."

Dib gave Zim a hard look as they entered the classroom. Zim sat down and Dib sat behind him.

"You're planning something, now what is it?" Dib demanded.

"I'm not planning anything. Will you get off my back?"

"No, there's something up your sleeve. You're scheming something in that alien head of yours."

"I'm not. Will you shut up? I'm trying to pay attention."

Dib pursed his lips and went silent.

"_What _is he doing?" Dib whispered to himself as he walked out of the classroom, Zim still having not moved from his desk. "I'll have to investigate."

Dib hurried out into the front field of the school, out towards the large oak tree, whose branches spread out sturdily. Quickly, he climbed up until he had a good view into his classroom. Zim still sat where he was. Dib took out a pair of binoculars he kept on hand at all times. He looked through them to get a clear view of Zim.

Zim sighed as he sat at his desk. All day all that had run through his head was what his leaders had told him. It was very depressing and caused him pain. He stood up abruptly and made his way to the chalkboard. Picking up a piece of chalk, the memories surged through his head once more.

"How did this happen?" he asked for the hundredth time. He started drawing on the board.

"What is it?" Dib whispered as he watched. Zim drew a circle—no, two circles—and himself being transferred from one to the other. "So he was brought from his home planet to ours." Zim wrote a few words underneath. "'Banned'? 'Sent'? 'Never to return'?" Dib squinted his eyes. "So Zim didn't come here because he wanted to?

Zim set the chalk down and studied the board for a few minutes before sighing once more. "Now it all makes sense. Now it all calculates." He erased the board furiously. "How am I supposed to live amongst these humans? These horrible, _filthy _humans!" He buried his face in his hands. "I can't do this, not any longer! I've tried for over four years to conquer the human race and I have not succeeded in the slightest." He lifted his head. "I was a fool to think I could."

Zim stood, forcing himself to not show emotion. He looked around the room until he found a cup. When he found one, he went over to the sink, filling the cup with its toxic water.

"What is he doing?" Dib growled. "He knows water hurts him."

"I'm a joke now," Zim whimpered, gazing into the liquid and his reflection staring back at him. "Look at me. I'm not even an Irken anymore."

The alien ripped off his wig and popped out his human-eyed-contacts, discarding the whole disguise into the garbage.

"_What is he doing?_" Dib practically yelled, zooming in on Zim. He scooted closer to the edge of the branch.

"Goodbye, ever cruel world," Zim announced in a quiet voice, his hands shaking. A couple drops of water splashed up out of the plastic cup and burned Zim's hand, even through his rubber gloves. Giving a tiny squeak, his expression did not change. "My last words . . . Damn you, Dib."

He knocked back his head and gulped down the water, feeling it burn his throat as it went down.

"Is he insane?!" Dib shrieked, watching excitedly. The branch shook violently and he nearly fell off. His hand clutched the bark in order to stay balanced.

A piercing pain zapped Zim's gut and he stumbled away from the counter, dropping the paper cup. His vision doubled, then un-doubled, and back again. A ringing erupted in his head and he could feel his body go numb with the pain that filled his entire being.

_"You're utterly useless" _was the last thing that ran through Zim's mind before he collapsed onto the class floor.

"Zim!" Dib gasped, jerking in surprise hard enough to fall off the branch. He landed with a thud on the hard ground and gave a small groan. He didn't stay down for long, though. Instead the boy jumped up and raced back up to the classroom.

Dib burst through the door and found Zim sprawled on the ground where he saw the alien pass out. The green boy's limbs were sprawled out, his legs bent under him and his arms outstretched in exhaustion. The human boy knelt over the alien, gripping the alien's shoulders.

"Zim! _Zim! _Wake up!" Dib paused.

_What am I doing? _he wondered, slowly releasing Zim's shoulders. _If he's dead, the threat is gone . . . right? Then why do I feel so frantic and panicked?_

Dib looked at the cup on the floor, a couple drops of water trickling out. "Why would he do this? Why would he poison himself?"

The boy bit his lip and looked at Zim lying on the ground. _I'm going to regret this, _he thought as he sped out of the school and toward Zim's house.

Dib burst into Zim's house, narrowly avoiding the security gnomes' grasp. He shut the door quickly, huffing heavily from sprinting all the way to the house. "GIR!" he called.

"Yes?" the tiny robot answered, shuffling into the room. He was even shorter than Zim was when Dib first met him. His eyes were bright blue and his voice was high-pitched and squeaky.

"What happens when Zim drinks water?"

"Um . . . I don't know." GIR grinned. "Cupcake!"

"Forget the cupcake; this is important! I know that water burns him, but what does it do if it enters his body?"

"Dead! He'd be dead!"

Dib felt his skin prickle. "What would revive him?"

"Uh . . . I don't know." GIR took a bit of the pastry. "Cupcakes: YUM YUM!"

Dib groaned in frustration and stormed past GIR and into the kitchen. He had long ago found a way into Zim's lair that didn't include being flushed down the toilet. Instead he dove into the trashcan.

After screaming on the way down, Dib emerged into the large lair where Zim conducted experiments and kept information. There was a large monitor in the center of the lab along with several counters, some empty and others with random items. With several keyboards, buttons, and overall electronics, it almost seemed like Dib dropped into an electronics store rather than an alien's lair.

"Water . . . Water . . ." Dib muttered as he looked through the electronics files. "Here it is . . . what? What kind of writing is this?!" On the large monitor, along with a diagram of water and its molecular structure, was a description in random alien letters that looked like chicken scratches. "Oh, right, this is the language that Zim's race uses. I remember Tak's files having the same lettering . . . but I don't have any decoding equipment with me! How am I supposed to read this?"

He continued searching until he found another file attached. He clicked it and heard a small _click _behind him. The boy turned and found a hologram had emerged in the middle of one of the keyboard counters. Dib realized that it was a holographic tutorial on the effects of water on an Irken. Looking back at the monitor, he could make out that the tutorial was created two days ago.

"Zim," Dib murmured incredulously as he turned back to the hologram, "this is what you had planned?" The boy played the hologram.

The video showed water being poured onto a holographic Zim. As Dib already knew, it burned Zim, sending the hologram screaming and running off the shown screen. After that, a new holographic Zim appeared. This one drank the water, and then showed him falling to the ground. While he was lying on the ground, it showed the water sizzling through Zim's insides, drawing out the color of his skin as his blood disappeared, along with the water. His organs didn't look too damaged.

"So his blood neutralizes the water," Dib explained aloud to himself. "Because of the blood loss, he could be dead in minutes!" The boy gulped. "How do I fix this?"

The hologram fizzled out. The monitor buzzed and flashed like it had a glitch, and then continued with playing a new video. This was a video that showed Zim taking out some of his blood into a container, then storing it in a special tube. He glanced behind him and suddenly looked angry. "Hey!" the alien growled.

"Z-Zim?!" Dib gasped. Zim looked real, and was looking straight at him.

"GIR, what are you doing with that camera?" the alien demanded.

_It's just a video, _Dib reminded himself.

"You're gonna be on TV!" GIR's voice giggled. "What are you doing?"

"I'm keeping a pint of blood in this cooling system for an experiment. Turn off the camera! What if the humans get a hold of this?"

GIR's voice giggled and the video switched off.

"The blood!" Dib realized instantly. "Where is it?" He looked around, clueless. "GIR!"

"Ye-es?" The boy jumped when he saw that the robot was right behind him.

"Where's the blood Zim has?"

"In the cooler."

"Where's the cooler?"

"In the lab."

"In here?"

"Yes."

"Well _where _in here?"

"A place."

Dib's hands shook with frustration. "Show me!"

GIR smiled. "For a cupcake!"

"Yeah, sure, fine. Just show me!"

"For _two _cupcakes?"

"GIR!"

"Okay." The robot walked to one of the counters. He pressed one of the buttons on the keyboard and a steel box rose up from floor. GIR went over to the small steel box and opened it, taking out the container of blood. Dib snatched the container from the robot. "Thanks GIR!"

"Where's my cupcake?"

"I'll give it to you soon! Be back when I can!"

Dib ran out of Zim's house and sped towards the high school, his hands clutched around the syringe and tube of blood.

The boy erupted into the classroom and froze with his face suddenly pale. With Zim's body drained of blood, the alien's body was so pale that it was nearly Dib's skin color.

Dib walked over to Zim's body, his legs shaking violently.

_If he dies, the threat is gone, _the boy reminded himself once more. _If he's dead, the world is safe! Why am I even trying to help him?_

Dib took a deep breath and exhaled angrily. "But if I do nothing to save him, I might as well have killed him, right? I can't be held accountable for murder. I can't. But . . ." He howled in frustration once more.

Still grumbling arguments under his breath, he filled the syringe with the deep green blood. Next, he rolled up Zim's sleeve, exposing his tender, pale arm. Taking one last look at the seemingly dead Zim, he plunged the needle into Zim's arm, pressing down the shot. Dib took out the syringe and slipped it into his pocket just as Zim moaned. The alien opened his eyes slightly and garbled, "What . . . Where . . .?"

"You're awake," Dib sighed, his voice giving a bored tone.

"What? Dib?" Zim sat up slowly. "What happened?"

"I came back for my pencil, which I thought was in here, when I saw you on the floor. I was about to get the janitor to clean you up."

"So . . . I'm not dead?"

"No. I don't know what you did, or why, but it's a shame you aren't dead because of it." Dib grinned evilly. "I should go find a teacher to expose that you're an alien!" After all, you don't have your disguise on!" Dib laughed triumphantly and raced out of the classroom.

"H-Hey! Wait!" Zim stood up, nearly falling again from his wooziness. Rushing to take his human disguise out of the trash and frantically putting it back on, he stumbled out of the room after Dib. He barely caught sight of Dib rounding a corner. On the ground was something that must have slipped from Dib's pocket.

"Ha! Dib, you fool!" Zim cried, hobbling over to the object. "I now possess your—" He stopped and picked it up. The object was a syringe with the vial still holding a few drops of his blood inside. Zim looked at his arm, realizing his sleeve had been rolled up and found a small puncture mark.

Zim looked up where he last saw the boy. "Dib . . .?"

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**Please review and let me know what you think!**


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